


Out of Hand

by anticyclone



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Defiant Victim, F/M, Forced Orgasm, Manipulation, Mind Control, Nonconathon Treat, Stealth Public Rape, Vaginal Sex, unprotected sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 21:39:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15204035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: All Joan wants is to have coffee in a quiet spot and not think about anything. All Damien wants is to let her know there's been a recent change in his circumstances.





	Out of Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [radioqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/radioqueen/gifts).



"Penny for your thoughts?"

Joan tensed as Damien settled into the chair across from her.

His last session had been two days ago. He'd been sullen. It had been a difficult appointment. After, Joan had made a drink and stared at it until second, third, and fourth thoughts had crowded her head. She'd poured it down the drain in the bathroom. It was probably unwise to associate Damien and drinking.

Trouble being, he was currently sipping her coffee.

He'd crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. Judging from the way he pressed his lips together after the first drink, the coffee was clearly too hot for him, but he was trying not to show it.

"Did you follow me here?" Joan asked, quietly.

The coffee shop wasn't crowded, but it also wasn't empty. It was a locally owned place, shaped like an L. She'd picked a table tucked into the back corner. From here the busy front counter wasn't visible. Still, there were a couple of students working on their laptops and a man reading a newspaper at the tables in their section.

"You know me. Always up for coffee. Especially when I'm up at a godawful hour."

"Especially someone else's?" Joan asked, rolling her eyes. It was just after eight. She'd already been awake for two hours, although she'd only been here for about ten minutes. "May I please have my coffee back?"

Damien smiled and continued to hold her coffee, although he didn't drink any more.

It looked like he was wearing someone else's clothes. He always wore a lot of black, or gray, but instead of a sweatshirt he had on a leather jacket, and instead of unintentionally scuffed jeans he had on a dark pair that looked both relatively new and like they actually fit. Something from the back of his closet? God, she hoped that he hadn't _dressed up_ for her. Not that this outfit fit her ideal of a man stepping up his clothing game, but considering the man she was dealing with…

"If you're hoping that Mark will be joining me for breakfast, I'm going to have to disappoint you."

"Dr. B, I'm not here for Mark."

Joan reached up and pushed her hair back behind her shoulders, away from her neck. The coffee shop was warm and it was bothering her. Damien's eyes tracked the movement of her fingers. "This is inappropriate. We shouldn't be meeting outside of your appointments. I believe you did make one with Sarah before you left on Tuesday."

"I feel like you meet your patients outside office hours pretty frequently." Damien finally put down her coffee.

Joan didn't move to pick it up. Instead she started fiddling with her necklace. It was a little too long for the shirt she'd put on that morning. The green pendant kept slipping behind the neckline. "How I conduct my private life is none of your concern. For your own recovery, Damien, I think we should maintain strong boundaries."

No one turned to look at them when Damien started laughing, even though the sound made the hair on the back of Joan's neck rise. Or maybe it was the expression on his face. Or … maybe it was the fact that she never played with her jewelry.

She dropped the pendant, and Damien's eyes brightened. "I always like it better when you realize what's going on, Dr. Bright."

"I don't understand."

Damien glanced at her fingers, then her throat, bare now that she'd moved her hair away. "No. You get it. You just don't want to admit it."

Joan pressed her lips together, briefly. She glanced out at the rest of the coffee shop - or what she could see of it, anyway. The students and the man reading the paper were all within earshot if this got further out of hand than it already was. She struggled to modulate her volume as she said, "When did you notice your ability returning, Damien?"

"Woke up this way."

That didn't make any sense. He'd reported no indications that he might be healing. Wouldn't there have been some? He'd have told her - He'd been reticent in all of their sessions but he had told her things, when she'd really pressed. "How-"

"Just lucky, I guess. Won't be coming in for any more appointments. Not that you're going to think that's much of a loss…"

"I did want to help you."

He snorted.

"You're the one who complained you didn't know how to function without your ability," Joan said, still trying to keep her voice low. "Why keep returning to the office if it was useless? You've made very clear that you don't enjoy my company."

"Like you enjoy mine?"

She couldn't let him rile her up. "I feel I've demonstrated that if I had the chance, I wouldn't leave you on the side of the road, Damien."

Damien smirked and made a finger-gun motion, like he'd caught her at something. "Because Mark was there."

"No, because I have a shred of decency about me," Joan snapped. The man reading the newspaper side-eyed her. She wanted to stand up and leave, but she could feel pressure on her shoulders, holding her in her chair. Damien wanted her to stay.

"Unlike me?"

Joan lifted both hands, palms up. Did she really need to answer that?

"Cold, Dr. B."

"You did interrupt my morning off to steal my breakfast." She sighed. "What are you really doing here, Damien?"

"Thought experiment."

Joan blinked. "What?"

"Well, I guess, more like the execution of a thought experiment." He picked her coffee up and took a long sip, now that it had been sitting on the table cooling off. "You know, not having my ability - it was like being a different person, and having to live their life, and everybody is constantly sniping at you because you're fucking it up."

"Many people experience feelings like that after a traumatic incident."

Damien sighed, and Joan found her mouth falling shut under an unwelcome pressure at the back of her mind. Ugh. She had not missed this. He set the cup down. "Everything I did was wrong. But now that I'm back, it's my chance to try some stuff out."

"I failed with you, didn't I?"

He went still. "Excuse me?"

Joan wrapped both her hands around her coffee cup. Only lukewarm now. Damien's eyes focused on her when she picked it up and sipped from the other side of the rim. "If you ever listened to a word I said to you, you wouldn't still think of manipulating people as a game. Because it's not." She realized she wanted to keep drinking until her cup was empty, and Damien was staring at her mouth, and she made herself put the cup down and pull her hands into her lap. "You should leave. There's nothing else we can say to each other."

"I think there is." He smiled again. "Which brings me back to the thought experiment."

Instead of answering, she crossed her arms over her chest. This was not a conversational route she was willing to go down.

Of course, Damien had no problem dragging her along with him. "I've been wondering for a while just how much I can _want_ someone into something, I know, I know, 'it's not mind control,'" he said, in what she hoped was not supposed to be an imitation of her voice. "But if the other person kind of wants it too? I mean, could I … _want_ someone into an orgasm?"

Joan gaped at him.

"And, see, I've kind of been your test subject. I know you've been keeping notes on how a head injury affects atypical abilities. I feel like it's time to turn the tables."

It wasn't until even her ears felt flushed and hot that Joan managed to make words come out of her mouth again. Leaning across the table, she hissed, "I wouldn't leave this cafe with you over my own dead body."

Damien's eyes sparked. "Ah, Dr. Bright, you know that kind of thing gets me going."

"Do you want my honest opinion of you, Damien?" She kept herself leaning forward, even though it put their faces near each other, and her wrists within Damien's reach. He didn't make a move to grab her. He didn't stop smiling while she whispered, either. "You have spent approximately a month living like the rest of us and you have not stopped whining for a second of it. You haven't even been willing to try, except to get yourself food and coffee,  when you're not harassing me for it. I'm calling the AM today and I don't care what Mark says. I don't care what they do, either, as long as they keep you away from me."

By the end of it she was breathing hard, and she was sure the rest of the cafe thought they were breaking up, or something. But when she glanced out at the other people in their section none of them were looking her way.

Damien sat up and then leaned back in his chair, letting his knees drift apart, so one leg hung into the aisle. "You're free to leave. If you really want to."

Joan shifted in her chair, intending to rise to her feet. Instead, she found herself crossing her legs, and then her arms. An uncomfortable flush was building under her skin. It had to at least be obvious by now that she and Damien were arguing. He hadn't bothered to keep his voice down anyway.

Then it clicked. She let out an irritated sigh and scanned the shop again. "You're doing that thing where you don't want people to look at you, is that it? But me too?"

He snorted. Her eyes jerked back to him, and he pulled the rest of her coffee over to himself. _"You're_ doing that thing where you think pointing out what I'm doing is the same thing as resisting it."

Joan did manage to resist the urge to bite back with _'You're doing that thing where you're an incredible asshole,'_ but only just barely. Instead she let a breath out through her teeth. "If you actually wish I would react differently, I think I would be … reacting differently," she said.

Even for Damien that was a terrible comeback. He made a face, then tapped his finger against the coffee cup. "You are reacting, though, right?" he asked. Oh, and now he chose to lower his voice. "You don't actually wish I would leave you alone. Or you wouldn't still be sitting across from me."

She glared at him, the back of her neck hot. So was her chest. So were her thighs.

"God, I love when you're wrong." Damien grinned. Some of his hair had flopped down into his eyes. "You do too, huh? You're squirming, Dr. B. Something bothering you?"

"No." She dug her fingers into her arms.

"I've thought about this before," he admitted. "Not sure how big a difference that makes. You could probably make a study of it. How fantasy affects the strength of atypical mental force, blah blah blah."

Joan wanted to picture punching him in the face. She'd done it before. The image was there in her mind. But when she reached out for it, she got something else instead, Damien laid out for her with that stupid grin. The heat between her thighs flared. She actually was squirming in her seat. When she noticed, it was easy to stop. But it was also easy to stop noticing. In a moment her arms had uncurled and she was fiddling with the ends of her hair. Damien's eyes tracked the movement of her fingers.

"What exactly do you think you're going to get away with here, Damien?" Joan asked. She leaned over and picked up her purse. In an inside pocket was lipstick and a compact mirror. Damien stared while she applied a new coat. She wanted to scream. She blotted her lips on a napkin. "How much can you get away with in front of other people?"

"Kinda figured we'd cross that bridge when we came to it."

"There's no _we."_

"Dunno. I'm not the one who's acting weird, Dr. B."

It had to be so obvious that something was wrong and no one was reacting at all. Joan's pulse rocketed up when her fingers moved to the top button of her blouse. She undid two buttons and then pressed her hands down onto her thighs. Her nails dug painfully into her legs.

"Why are you doing this?"

"They played me some of your notes."

If she had to draw blood, she wouldn't let go of - fuck! One of her hands came loose and undid a third button. It was just so warm. It felt like she hadn't had sex in - Well, in how many months she had actually gone without having sex, but she wasn't about to say that out loud.

"They grabbed them off your computer, I guess? But, uh… not really fun, hearing yourself recorded." Damien lowered his eyes to the table and looked up at her through his lashes. The hand Joan had on her thigh slid to one side, then back again. "Not fun having other people listen in on our private sessions either, Doctor. Thought I might let you know how it felt."

It had to be the injury. Something had changed. Something had made him more powerful, given him more … punch? Something, or else Joan wouldn't be rubbing her own thigh and undoing the last of her buttons. That had to be it.

She hadn't worn a layer underneath, so the cups of her black bra were exposed. Damien just watched her for a solid minute while she played with her hair and tried to push away the image of - no, fuck. Her hand drifted down to cup her breast and she rolled her palm over one of her nipples, already hard. If her face wasn't bright red it was only because her body was struggling too much to divert the resources.

From the corner of her eye it still looked like no one was watching them. "How many people can you really influence at once?" she asked, sitting up a little straighter to give Damien a better view.

"Not sure."

Heat and an uncomfortable pressure was building between her legs. Joan found herself inching forward slightly, her thighs splaying open until her skirt tugged tight. As she reached back with both hands to undo the clasp on her bra, Damien finished off what was left in her coffee cup. Then he ran his finger along the rim while she neatly tucked the bra into her purse. The pendant of her necklace was cool against her skin.

Instead of returning to her chest, her hands settled flat on the table in front of her. She started to frown before a small jolt went through her. Damien grinned, and Joan swallowed. She tensed her legs, briefly rubbing her thighs together, but they split again like someone was gently pulling her knees apart.

"The doctors at the AM, they kept playing certain parts of my sessions back at me," Damien said. "They kept saying that I had, uh…"

"Zero moral compass?"

He waved her off and her lips snapped shut. "Some kind of obsession with you."

Joan glared at him. Her hips rocked and the heat between her legs built. No one else in the room was reacting, but Damien's eyes kept moving over her. He was still rolling his thumb along the coffee cup. Joan tried not watching. It didn't work. Her mind kept conjuring up images of what else his fingers could do. Wait. _His_ mind. Right?

"I kept trying to explain that I can't just force someone to get along with me. There has to be something there for me to work with. It's gotta be a little bit mutual, you know?"

"Nothing we have is mutual." The heat was starting to throb slightly. She was trying so hard not to move, but it was harder and harder not to seek out some kind of friction.

"Doubt that," Damien said.

Her hips rocked. She kept watching Damien's fingers and picturing them doing something about the tension building up in her gut. It was starting to feel like it wouldn't be that difficult to achieve. The air in the cafe wasn't too cold against her bare skin but her nipples were still hard. One of the students at another table would see her if he just looked up. Joan was already concocting fantasies of leaving the country and changing her name. If he or any of the others looked up… If Damien's control slipped…

There had to be some way to get rid of him still. "You're doing this just because other people listened to you talk about yourself? Isn't that kind of how all your conversations go?"

"Would you like to talk about yourself instead?"

"You might be able to - to insert certain feelings," Joan admitted. She bent her head. Her breathing was picking up.

"Not mind control. Just picking up what's already there."

"There is _nothing_ here for you, Damien."

Damien moved his eyes up and down her, lingering on her breasts. "Are you wet yet?"

Joan took several long, deep breaths, and raised one hand from the table. It felt like trying to walk straight into a strong wind. Damien's eyes lit up and he laughed out loud when she managed to lift her middle finger.

"If you back that up with walking out, I'll be really impressed," he told her. From the look on his face Joan was surprised he didn't reward her with sarcastic, slow applause. "Of course if you don't button yourself up first you may have some trouble once you're on the sidewalk."

She was rocking back and forth, and Damien had eased up somehow. Or she thought he had. Her knees were rubbing together. It only resulted in the barest friction against her but it was something. God, she wanted more than just something. When he stood up, she flinched, but all he did was pull his chair over next to hers. Then he leaned in so his mouth was next to her ear, and his body was almost - but not quiet - rubbing up against her side. There was still nobody looking at them.

"Like seeing you like this," he said.

"I _hate_ you."

"Feel like somebody who hates me wouldn't want me to fuck her."

"I don't want you to fuck me."

"But you wanna come, right?" He reached out and ran a finger along her necklace, but drew his hand back before it touched her breast. "It's not like I'm recording you, Dr. B. You can tell me. I won't play it for the AM later."

Joan shook her head.

"You wouldn't be so easy to work up if you didn't want it," he murmured. _Now_ he was being quiet? His lips brushed her ear, and he swallowed when it made her shudder. "You're hot when you're wet. You _are_ wet, right? I don't really need you to admit it, but, ah, if you do… I'll let you play with yourself. That sound good?"

One of Joan's hands slipped off the table. Damien grabbed her wrist tight enough to hurt. She winced, but he held her hand up. Far, far away from her thighs.

"You can tell me or we can sit here while you squirm," Damien said, sighing. He went quiet and watched her for over a minute before he got too impatient. Or Joan got too impatient. Could he _really_ feel things she was thinking? He did duck his head so his hair brushed her throat but he didn't start kissing her like … like one of them had been imagining. He just inhaled and started rubbing his thumb against the inside of her wrist.

Oh. Joan swallowed, trying to keep it quiet. But she must have made some indication, because Damien's eyes jumped to hers. Then he grinned, and lightly ran his thumbnail over her skin. "Really?" he asked.

Joan felt a pulse between her legs. She turned her head away and tried not to picture Damien's face while he spoke. The heat and the pressure was getting worse and yes, she was decidedly wet, and fuck she wanted something better than rocking forward and hitting nothing but air.

"If this is doing it for you it must've been a while," he said, casually. He was barely doing anything. Just stroking the sensitive skin of her wrist. He was just leaning close to her, body heat bleeding over her, making it _worse._ Making everything worse. "I always kinda pegged you for the quiet type but you must have something to say to me."

"Go to hell."

"You keep saying shit like that and it keeps not working. C'mon, Dr. Bright. I know you're smarter than that." He made a satisfied little _hmm_ sound when Joan tried to put her free hand down between her legs, but twisted her wrist back until she let her fist drop to the table. "Just one little thing. Admit one little thing and I'll let you finish."

If there was a way out of this Joan couldn't find it. She couldn't force her arm to turn. She couldn't tense her legs and stand up. Damien bore down on her and she couldn't push him away. She was wet enough that it felt like it was starting to make her skirt damp. She swallowed around a sudden sour taste in her mouth.

Just say something. Anything. Say something and it would be over. Say something and he'd leave. "I really wish you'd let me finish."

Sighing, Damien pressed his thumb sharply against her wrist and it felt like…

"Fuck," she hissed, her fist uncurling. It wasn't huge or earth-shattering but little shocks were spreading up her back. It felt - It felt good.

Then Damien nipped at her earlobe and she actually wanted him to do it again. No. No no, no. She _wanted_ him to do it again. She gulped down a lungful of air and let Damien yank her to her feet, turn her around. He wasn't leaving. Instead his hand slid undid the clasp on her skirt and there was a definitive tearing sound immediately after. He dropped her underwear to the floor with her skirt.

_Then_ he finally pressed up against her. He pressed his mouth to hers but it was definitely Joan who moved back and planted herself firmly in the middle of the table. The empty coffee cup fell off the edge. It shouldn't have surprised her, but the noise didn't make anyone look their way.

Damien stepped between her legs and wrapped one arm around her waist. Joan put her hands on his shoulders. He fumbled to unzip himself while she hooked one leg around him. He had never actually said he'd let her go. She hoped the table was bolted to the floor, it didn't feel very sturdy underneath her.

"Before, I could feel that you were happy I was powerless."

She felt dazed. "If I was happy it was because you couldn't threaten me anymore," she said, wincing when he pushed into her without warning. He was hard, and his cock moved into her so easily, and he hadn't exactly stopped to ask if she had taken a pill that morning or anything else. That was probably bad. She should probably worry about that. Except she couldn't latch onto it. Every observation was like water in her hands.

"Do you still believe that?"

"No." She rested her cheek on his shoulder, biting down on her lip when he thrust forward. It hurt but not as much as it would have if she wasn't already so wet for him.

A man wearing a hat and carrying a notebook walked into the back of the cafe. He scanned the area for an empty seat, his eyes skimming directly over Joan and Damien. It didn't stop him from walking over and taking the table directly next to them. He started sipping his drink and flipping through mostly empty pages in his notebook, completely ignoring Damien thrusting into her and Joan trying very hard not to whimper.

"Do you still believe you don't want this?"

The man leaned over his page to circle one word, then leaned back to stare at it. Joan let out a low sound when Damien bit her earlobe again and the stranger didn't even glance their way.

"Stop it," Damien said, tapping a finger against her back. He'd put his other hand down between her shoulders to keep her upright. Joan looked back at him. He wet his lips. "Answer me."

Joan opened her mouth and shut it again without replying. Her necklace tapped against Damien's chest every time he shoved forward. The orgasm high was quickly falling. Instead she was just sweaty, and uncomfortable, and it was starting to hurt when Damien pressed his cock all the way into her. His nails dug into the skin on her back, underneath her shirt. Looking away from him was like turning back into that strong wind and trying to inhale.

The AM must have missed something in his scans, after they'd dropped him off for examination. She had always felt flickers of pressure from Damien, _interest,_ but it had been easier to resist before. His power coming back to normal didn't explain… this. Or the fact that when he kissed her again she opened her mouth. Or that fully four people were ignoring all of this happening right in front of them.

Damien bit her lower lip and a throb of dizzying panic washed over her. Her gut clenched and she latched at his shoulders, roughly enough that he flinched at it. "Are you sure you can control all of these people?"

The question clearly threw him for a second. Then he leaned up against her and moved, so he was rubbing against her clit. "Scared I'm going to slip?"

It was hard not to start gulping down air. If he could do all this but she could still refuse to answer a question, at what point would someone else be able to look up and see them? "Of course I'm scared! I don't have that much faith in your ability!"

Damien groaned, rolling his eyes. "Christ."

"Damien-"

"You know, just-" He slid one hand down along her back and pressed, angling her up in him. When he moved into her again he hit her at an angle that made heat rise past some of the panic still threatening to overwhelm her. "You're going to manage to take all the fun out of this."

"Oh, I'm _sorry,"_ Joan snarled. She had to gasp for her next breath and force herself to hold it. The panic was still there, under her skin, creeping forward, and there was nothing to focus on except breathing to make it go away.

"Look. Same deal. Tell me and I'll let it finish." He pressed his forehead to hers. "C'mon. I know you can say it. You did before."

"Promise to let me go."

"Are you seriously making demands?"

"Damien."

He frowned, going still for a moment. Finally he said, "I'll let you leave the cafe," which wasn't much of a promise but it was likely the best she'd get. At least there was still something left for him to want that he hadn't already taken.

That just meant she had to make it good. "This is probably the worst experience of my life," she forced out, her voice surprisingly steady. Damien looked reflexively offended. His mouth opened, but she spoke before he could. "There's no way I'm going to come again anytime soon, but I _want_ to. I want you to make me," she said, feeling something click painfully in her jaw as she fought not to grind her teeth. "Are you happy now? Isn't this what you came here to do?"

He stared at her, and nothing happened. Well, he was making shallow thrusts in and out of her, but just barely, like he wasn't really thinking about it. His expression was nearly blank. Most of the time she could read something on his face, but not now.

She braced herself with a hand on his shoulder. "Damien."

"Mm. Yeah. Got it, Doc," he said, shaking his head. He looked her over and then glanced up at her, the corner of his mouth turned up. "Might need some help here."

Which was how Joan ended up with her tongue in his mouth and her heartbeat drowning out the rest of the cafe. Damien kept trying to rub up against her clit when he pushed his cock forward, even after what she'd said, and even after what she'd said the stimulation was making her twitch a little. If it went on for much longer maybe he'd make a liar out of her again. And he was way too into kissing her like this.

Of course, as soon as that thought crossed her mind, he moved his head away and bit her earlobe again. At least that wouldn't leave much of a mark. He moved one hand between them to play with her nipple, twisting it nearly painfully and palming her breast like an overeager… No, fuck, she couldn't think about him like that, or he might pick up on it. She wouldn't put it past him to let her go trying to work her up some more, and then she'd fall off the goddamn table.

Finally Damien pulled out of her - somehow she still heard that wet, awful noise - and came all over her thighs. He held her until he was finished. He didn't look down and neither did she, but she could feel hot liquid on her skin, dripping down to her knees when he let go of her and backed all the way up.

It felt like she would fall if she tried to stand. She gripped the edge of the table instead, while Damien grabbed a napkin off the table and wiped himself off. Then he made himself decent, and picked the empty coffee cup off the floor.

When he stood his shoulder bumped the table next to them. The writing stranger steadied his own cup but didn't look away from his still mostly-blank page.

Damien stuffed the dirty napkins into the cup and stared at her. "Are you just going to sit there until I leave?" he finally asked. "Feel like that's a bad plan."

Shit.

Joan got to her feet, wobbling. Damien didn't try to steady her. There were no more napkins left to clean off her legs. Her underwear was a total loss, she put it into her purse and put her skirt back on by itself. Her fingers kept slipping as she tried to button her shirt back up.

When she was done Damien turned and started walking out of the cafe. Joan walked fast to keep up with him - she wasn't sure how big a radius his influence would have, especially when they rounded the corner and walked past the cash registers, where there was a line of five or six people plus all the staff. He dropped their trash into a can by the door and held it for her.

Outside, it was sweltering, and Joan vaguely remembered that one of the reasons she'd come here that morning was because the cafe had air conditioning.

"Bye, Dr. Bright," Damien said.

He waved at her but didn't turn around. Then he walked straight into the street, one car slowing down just enough to let him get to the other side of the road without hitting him.

Joan waited until he was out of sight before making a dash to her car.

The steering wheel was hot to the touch. Her fingers smarted when she buckled herself into the driver's seat.

She voice dialed the number. Normally she didn't do that. She'd seen studies, talking to another person was distracting when you drove, even if you weren't physically pressing any buttons on your phone.

But she was afraid if she waited until after she'd showered and cleaned herself up, she'd chicken out.

Three rings in, Ellie answered. "Joan."

Joan inhaled. "Is that offer of immunity still on the table?"


End file.
